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What If North Korea Did It?

A good friend of mine is doubtful that North Korea was responsible for last month’s sinking of the South Korean patrol ship Cheonan. He says North Korea knows they would be obliterated several times over if they committed an overt act of war. I’m not so sure an overt act of war would lead to such a result, though.

I’m certain the North would be obliterated if a full-on war between the two Koreas broke out. The price to the South, however, would be painfully high. North Korea would rain fire on South Korea, especially Seoul. Many thousands would be killed, property would be destroyed and South Korea’s hard-earned economic miracle would be over for a good long while.

It seems to me that South Korea’s military advantages are cancelled out by its own economic success. Whatever they would “win” in a war would pale in comparison to what they would lose. I don’t believe South Korea wants such a fight, and I have a feeling North Korea’s leadership shares this belief and is emboldened by it.

This little bit that ran recently in the Korea Times leads me to believe a full-scale war is not likely:

“Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Yu Myung-hwan said Sunday that South Korea could take the sinking of the naval ship Cheonan to the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) if North Korea was found to have been involved in the incident.

Asked what kind of diplomatic measures South Korea could consider, Yu said ‘war-related’ affairs were the jurisdiction of the council and therefore Seoul would have to abide by its ruling.”

This is bunk. There is nothing in the laws of physics that says the UNSC has any such jurisdiction. This is just a fiction commonly propagated by countries lacking the power to project their will and/or seeking to constrain more powerful countries from projecting theirs. South Korea now adds a third category: countries trying very hard not to go to war. And they’ll succeed, because I sure don’t see China giving a green light to an attack on the North.

If North Korea did it, I believe we’ll see an emergency session of the UNSC, a very serious sounding communiqué and some “tough” sanctions that really won’t have much effect on Pyongyang.

Maybe this is just wishful thinking on my part. I am living here with my wife and son, after all, and the last thing I want is for us to be anywhere near a war zone. One thing I know for sure is that if I come to feel the chances of war are greater than 25 per cent, we’ll be moving on.